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Some 385,000 Swedes were out of work last month, the agency said in a statement, explaining, "The trend of employment in September continues to be positive among both men and women, though slightly less for women."

Almost one-third of the unemployed, or 114,000, were full-time students looking for a job. Among those aged 15-24, 147,000 were unemployed, corresponding to a youth unemployment rate of 24 percent.

Among youth who are unemployed, 63,000 were full-time students.

Seasonally adjusted figures show unemployment was 8.2 percent in September.

In September, 4.56 million people in Sweden had jobs, an increase of 85,000 from the same period last year. The seasonally adjusted number of people in the labour force aged 15-74 was 4.98 million last month.

The employment rate in September rose by 0.7 percentage points to 64.9 percent. The rise is mainly due by an increase among men by 1.6 percentage points to 68.2 percent.

The number of full-time employees, or those working at least 35 hours per week, increased by 104,000 compared with September 2009.

People with either permanent or temporary employment rose by 72,000 to 4.06 million. Among those, 3.44 million had permanent employment, an increase of 48,000. The increase occurred mainly among men.

On average, the number of hours worked amounted to 157.3 million hours per week in September 2010. Compared with September 2009, this is an increase of 5.4 million hours, or 3.6 percent.

The number of people outside the labour force amounted to 2.08 million. Within this group, those who are not working because of illness dropped by 61,000, while the number of pensioners rose by 50,000.

The labour supply not utilised amounted 19.9 million hours per week, or 498,000 full-time jobs, with a full-time job representing a 40-hour week.

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